GEORGE
454
GEORGE
points out that the earliest narrative known to us,
even though fragments of it may be read in a paHmp-
sest of the fifth century, is full beyond belief of extrav-
agances and of quite incredible marvels. Three times
is George put to death — chopped into small pieces,
buried deep in the earth and consumed by fire — but
each time he is resuscitated by the power of God. Be-
sides this we have dead men brought to life to be bap-
tized, wholesale conversions, including that of "the
Empress Alexandra", armies and idols destroyed in-
stantaneously, beams of timber suddenly bursting
into leaf, and finally milk flowing instead of blood
from the martyr's severed head. There is, it is true,
a mitigated form of the story, which the older Bolland-
ists have in a measure taken under their protection
(see Act. SS., 23 Ap., §9). But even this abounds
both in marvels and in historical contradictions, while
modern critics, like Amelineau and Delehaye, though
approaching the question from very different stand-
points, are agreed in thinking that this mitigated ver-
sion has been derived from the more extravagant by a
process of elimination and rationalization, not vice
versa. Remembering then the unscrupulous freedom
with which any wild story, even when pagan in origin,
was appropriated by the early hagiographers to the
honour of a popular saint (see, for example, the case of
St. Procopius as detailed in Delehaye, "Legends",
ch. v) we are fairly safe in assuming that the Acts of
St. George, though ancient in date and preserved to us
(with endless variations) in many different languages,
afford absolutely no indication at all for arrii/ing at
the saint's authentic history. This, however, by no
means implies that the martyr St. George never ex-
isted. An ancient cultus, going back to a very early
epoch and connected with a definite locality, in itself
constitutes a strong historical argument. Such we
have in the case of St. George. The narratives of the
early pilgrims, Theodosius, Antoninus, and Arculphus,
from the sixth to the eighth century, all speak of
Lydda or Diospolis as the seat of the veneration of St.
George, and as the resting-place of his remains (Geyer,
"Itinera Hierosol.", 139, 176, 288). The early date
of the dedications to the saint is attested by existing
inscriptions of ruined churches in Syria, Mesopotamia,
and Egypt, and the church of St. George at Thessa-
lonica is also considered by some authorities to belong
to the fourth century. Further the famous decree
"De Libris recipiendis", attributed to Pope Gelasius
in 495, attests that certain apocryphal Acts of St.
George were already in existence, but includes him
among those saints "whose names are justly rever-
enced amongst men, bvit whose actions are only known
to God". There seems, therefore, no ground for
doubting the historical existence of St. George, even
though he is not commemorated in the Syrian, or in
the primitive Hieronymian Martyrologium, but no
faith can be placed in the attempts that have been
made to fill up any of the details of his history. For
example, it is now generally admitted that St. George
cannot safely be identified with the nameless martyr
spoken of by Eusebius (Hist. Eccles., VIII, v), who
tore down Diocletian's edict of persecution at Nico-
media. The version of the legend in which Diocletian
appears as persecutor is not primitive. Diocletian is
only a rationalized form of the name Dadianus. More-
over, the connexion of the saint's name with Nico-
media is inconsistent with the early cultus at Diospolis.
Still less is St. George to be considered, as suggested by
Gibbon, Vetter, and others, a legendary double of the
disreputable bishop, George of Cappadocia, the Arian
opponent of St. Athanasius. "This odious stranger",
says Gibbon, in a famous passage, "disyuisin^ every
circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a
martyr, a saint, and a Clu-istianhero, and the infamous
George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the
renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms,
of chivalry, and of the Garter." "But this theory",
says Professor Bury, Gibbon's latest editor, "has
nothing to be said for it. ' ' The cultus of St. George is
too ancient to allow of such an identification, though
it is not improbable that the apocryphal Acts have
borrowed some incidents from the story of the Arian
bishop. Again, as Bury points out, "the connexion
of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not
relegate him to the region of the myth, for over against
the fabulous Christian dragon-slayer Theodore of the
Bithynian Heracla?a, we can set Agapetus of Synnada
and Arsacius, who, though celebrated as dragon-
slayers, were historical persons ". This episode of the
dragon is in fact a very late development, which can-
not be traced further back than the twelfth or thir-
teenth century. It is found in the Golden Legend
(Historia Lombardica) of James de Voragine and to
this circumstance it probably owes its wide diffusion.
It may have been derived from an allegorization of the
tyrant Diocletian or Dadianus, who is sometimes
called a dragon (6 /3i55iO! SpaKuv) in the older text, but
despite the researches of Vetter (Reinbot von Durne,
pp. Ixxv-cix) the origin of the dragon story remains
very obscure. In any case the late occurrence of this
development refutes the attempts made to derive it
from pagan sources. Hence it is certainly not true, as
stated by Hartland, that in George's person "the
Church has converted and baptized the pagan hero
Perseus" (The Legend of Perseus, iii, 38). In the
East, St. George (6 fieyaM/MpTvp), has from the begin-
ning been classed among the greatest of the martyrs.
In the West also his cultus is very early. Apart from
the ancient origin of St. George in Velabro at Rome,
Clovis (c. 512) built a monastery at Baralle in his hon-
our (Kurth, Clovis, II, 177). Arculphus and Adara-
nan probably made him well known in Britain early in
the eighth century. His Acts were translated into
Anglo-Saxon, and English churches were dedicated to
him before the Norman Conquest, for example one at
Doncaster, in 1061. The crusades no doubt added to
his popularity. William of Malmesbury tells us that
Saints George and Demetrius, "the martyr knights",
were seen assisting the Franks at the battle of Antioch,
1098 (Gesta Regum, II, 420). It is conjectured, but
not proved, that the "arms of St. George" (argent, a
cross, gules) were introduced about the time of Richard
Cceur de Lion. What is certain is that in 1284 in the
official seal of Lyme Regis a ship is represented with a
plain flag bearing a cross. The large red St. George's
cross on a white ground remains still the " white en-
sign" of the British Na\'y and it is also one of the ele-
ments which go to make up the LInion Jack. Any-
way, in the fourteenth century, "St. George's arms"
became a sort of uniform for English soldiers and
sailors. We find, for example, in the wardrobe ac-
counts of 1345-49, at the time of the battle of Cr^cy,
that a charge is made for 86 penoncells of the arms of
St. George mtended for the king's ship, and for 800
others for the men-at-arms (Archseologia, XXXI,
119). A little later, in the Ordinances of Richard II
to the English army invading Scotland, every man is
ordered to wear "a signe of the arms of St. George"
both before and behind, while the pain of death is
threatened against any of the enemy's soldiers "who
do bear the same crosse or token of Saint George, even
if they be prisoners". Somewhat earlier than this
Edward III had founded (c. 1347) the Order of the
Garter, an order of knighthood of which St. George was
the principal patron. Thechapeldedicated to St. George
in Windsor Castle was built to be the official sanctuary
of the order, and a badge or jewel of St George slaying
the dragon was adopted as part of the insignia. In
this way the cross of St. George has in a manner be-
come identified with the ideaofkniglit hood, and even in
Elizabeth's days, Spenser, at the beginning of his Faerie
Queene, tells us of his hero, the Red Cross Knight: —
But on his breast a bloody Cross he bore,
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
